New York Markets After Hours

The next generation may be even more insufferable than millennials

MTV announced that today’s teens would like to be called ‘the founders’

Everett Collection

By

JillianBerman

Reporter

What’s in a name? If it’s denoting an age group, probably not much. Ever since the baby boomers—the last generation to have a title that truly corresponded to a historical event -- marketers and demographers have been trying to coin age cohorts, often with mixed results.

MTV joined the party Wednesday, announcing that today’s teens would like to be called “The Founders,” according to surveys and focus groups the company conducted in partnership with a strategic branding agency. The Founders may sound like a 1970s folk band, but the major themes that emerged after talking to the 13- and 14-year-olds were a desire to create a new world and found a new, more diverse society, according to MTV.

The latest move comes as businesses are looking for ways to tap into the minds of these youngsters in order to more effectively sell them stuff. “I haven’t seen a reason to do it other than marketing,” Jennifer Deal, a senior research scientist at the Center for Creative Leadership, a provider of executive education with offices around the world, and an expert on generational differences, said. Generational definitions offer demographically diverse groups who happen to be the same age a way to identify with one another, which may make it easier to sell things to them, Deal said.

That effort is particularly crucial for MTV
VIA, -0.66%
. While programs like “The Real World” and “The Jersey Shore” once offered enough reality and rebellion from parents to capture their target demographics’ attention, today’s young people have entire teen-only online worlds on their smartphones that they can access -- often without corporate sponsorship or programming. The result has been a precipitous drop in ratings, according to Billboard magazine.

MTV does plan to use the insights from the survey to “teach ourselves the right language and messaging to have an effective conversation with this new generation,” said Jane Gould, the senior vice president of MTV Insights. But the latest naming exercise was more about giving the group a chance to label themselves instead of getting stuck with the monikers placed on them by adults.

“Some of the names that were being thrown about for this generation felt like they hadn’t been vetted by the generation,” Gould said. Other monikers the teens dreamed up for themselves included “the Builder Generation,” “the Bridge Generation” and “the Regenerator Generation.” So far, adults have coined them Generation Z, Nexters and iGen among other names.

And while the generation who fought in World War II and supported the war effort at home were known as the Greatest Generation and baby boomers received their sobriquet after a spike in the rate of births in period after World War II, others generations have not been so lucky with their handle. Generation X-ers (born between 1965 and 1980) inherited their nickname from a 1991 Douglas Copeland novel, “Generation X”, and millennials received theirs because, well, they came of age around just before or after the new millennium.

Though The Founders appears to have a positive bent, it may lose favor if history is any indication. Baby boomer is one of the few generational labels that seems to stick -- 79% of baby boomers identify with their moniker, whereas just 40% of millennials identify with the label they were given, according to the Pew Research Center. “Any label can always turn into something that it was never engendered to be,” Gould said. “Will there ultimately be a conversation in 20 years with The Founders and questioning their own name? I’m really happy that we can look at them and say: well, you named yourselves.”

Mortgage Rates

Powered by

This advertisement is provided by Bankrate, which compiles rate data from more than 4,800 financial institutions. Bankrate is paid by financial institutions whenever users click on display advertisements or on rate table listings enhanced with features like logos, navigation links, and toll free numbers. Dow Jones receives a share of these revenues when users click on a paid placement.

Intraday Data provided by SIX Financial Information and subject to terms of use.
Historical and current end-of-day data provided by SIX Financial Information.
All quotes are in local exchange time. Real-time last sale data for U.S. stock quotes reflect trades reported through Nasdaq only.
Intraday data delayed at least 15 minutes or per exchange requirements.